Cryonics is the low temperature preservation of people who can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine in the hope that future medicine will make it possible to revive them and restore their health. A speculative practice at the outer edge of science, cryonics is often viewed with suspicion. In this paper I defend two theses. I first argue that there is a small, yet non-negligible, chance that cryonics is technically feasible. I make the case for this by reference to what we know about death and cryobiology, and what we can expect of future nanorobotics...

Objectives: This study explores the awareness and the degree of acceptance of the idea of the medical technology cryonics-the freezing of a corpse to revive it in the future-among German citizens. Methods: Data were collected on the basis of a representatively weighted online survey of 1,000 people aged between 16 and 69 years and resident in the Federal Republic of Germany. Results: Forty-seven percent stated that they had already heard of cryonics; 22 percent could imagine having their bodies cryonized after their deaths...

Cryonics technology seeks to cryopreserve the anatomical basis of the mind so that future medicine can restore legally dead cryonics patients to life, youth, and health. Most cryonics patients experience varying degrees of ischemia and reperfusion injury. Neurons can survive ischemia and reperfusion injury more than is generally believed, but blood vessels are more vulnerable, and such injury can impair perfusion of vitrifying cryoprotectant solution intended to eliminate ice formation in the brain. Forms of vascular and neuronal damage are reviewed, along with means of mitigating that damage...

This article explores American conceptualizations of finance, the future, the limits of biological time, and the possibilities of biotechnoscience through an investigation of the social world of cryonics-the freezing of the dead with the hope of future revival. I describe some of the cosmologies of life, death, time, and the management of the future that circulate within cryonics communities, and I draw out relationships between cryonics practices and discourses and more common forms of personal future management prevalent within American neoliberal capitalism...

Cryonic suspension is a relatively new technology that offers those who can afford it the chance to be 'frozen' for future revival when they reach the ends of their lives. This paper will examine the ethical status of this technology and whether its use can be justified. Among the arguments against using this technology are: it is 'against nature', and would change the very concept of death; no friends or family of the 'freezee' will be left alive when he is revived; the considerable expense involved for the freezee and the future society that will revive him; the environmental cost of maintaining suspension; those who wish to use cryonics might not live life to the full because they would economize in order to afford suspension; and cryonics could lead to premature euthanasia in order to maximize chances of success...

Very low temperatures create conditions that can preserve tissue for centuries, possibly including the neurological basis of the human mind. Through a process called vitrification, brain tissue can be cooled to cryogenic temperatures without ice formation. Damage associated with this process is theoretically reversible in the same sense that rejuvenation is theoretically possible by specific foreseeable technology. Injury to the brain due to stopped blood flow is now known to result from a complex series of processes that take much longer to run to completion than the 6 min limit of ordinary resuscitation technology...

The "New Biology" has already made profound impact on the law. Cryonics and genetic engineering represent technological triumphs. The natural, organic process of dying is being replaced by a humanly engineered technological process for living. The dying phase of life is prolonged until biological knowledge is available to reverse the dying phase and restore the living phase. Both cryonics and genetic engineering in their attempts to replace the organic process with the technological process disturb the delicate balance of the triad of life which each individual experiences--faith, health, and justice...

In recent years, advances in medical science have left the legal community with a wide array of social, ethical, and legal problems previously unimaginable. Historically, legislative and judicial responses to these advances lagged behind the rapid pace of such developments. The gap between the scientist's question, "Can we do it?," and the lawyer's question, "Should/may we do it?'" is most evident in the field of cryonics, with its technique of cryonic, or cryogenic, suspension. In cryonic suspension, a legally dead but biologically viable person is preserved at an extremely low temperature until advances in medical science make it possible to revive the person and implement an effective cure...

Cryonic suspension is a method of stabilizing the condition of someone who is terminally ill so that they can be transported to the medical care facilities that will be available in the late 21st or 22nd century. There is little dispute that the condition of a person stored at the temperature of liquid nitrogen is stable, but the process of freezing inflicts a level of damage which cannot be reversed by current medical technology. Could this damage be reversed by future technology? We consider the limits of what medical technology should eventually be able to achieve (based on currently understood chemistry and physics) and whether the repair of frozen tissue is within those limits...